Different Rules
by K Hanna Korossy
Summary: Dean has always had different standards where Sam was concerned.


**Different Rules**  
K Hanna Korossy

"Dean, man, I'm sorry," Sam said again, as he had been every tenth mile or so. Responses had ranged everywhere from Dean silently turning up the music, to blowing him off with a sarcastic, "Yeah, Sam, you are sorry," to an angry curse. None were exactly the acceptance he'd been looking for. Dean would cave eventually—he always did—but Sam hated the tension in the car and would have preferred sooner rather than later. "You would have done the same thing," he added softly.

Dean's jaw tightened a fraction. Bingo. "Maybe," his brother finally allowed, the word a growl. "But I would've tried to find another way first, Sam."

His name—that was another good sign. He would have preferred "Sammy," but he'd take it. "There wasn't time," Sam said earnestly, "you know that. If we would've waited, it would've been too late for the guy."

"So instead, it was almost too late for you. Good plan, bro."

"But it wasn't," Sam responded, his voice softening. The only times Dean was ever genuinely, stubbornly mad at him were when he was worried about Sam, and it was kind of hard to be mad at that in return. "Dean, I had to do it."

Dean glanced over at him, eyes dark. "Yeah, well…I don't like it."

Sam's shoulders relaxed a tiny bit. "I know."

"This isn't why I wanted you back on the road."

"Dude, I know that. But it's helping people, right?" The guy he'd saved, after he finished shaking and crying, had been almost embarrassingly grateful. He'd practically forced the family picture and all the money from his wallet into Sam's hands—it was all still crumpled up in his hoodie pocket—and he said he'd never forget them. Sam believed him.

"Not by sacrificing one of us."

Sam knew exactly which one of "us" Dean meant.

It had been a fairly straightforward job: people had started disappearing near Yellowstone Park around the same time an unidentified pack of wild animals had moved into the area. Sam and Dean had come to town expecting to be hunting werewolves or razorbacks or some other cryptids. The truth had turned out to be a lot more sinister—and disturbing—than that.

"Dean, the guy had a kid," Sam said quietly. Not that it mattered, really, but it would to Dean. It had taken Sam a long time to realize, but his brother knew exactly what it was like to be a parent.

Dean glanced over at him, and he looked more unhappy now than mad. And when he said, just as quietly, "I know, Sammy," Sam sat back in relief, knowing he'd been forgiven.

Dean never had been able to hold a grudge to save his life.

00000

_The guy had a kid._And even if he hadn't, they still couldn't have left him there to that fate.

Dean cleared his throat. "But next time, I go play hero and you burn the books, okay?" It wasn't like the little dweeb they'd gone there to stop had any kind of defense. Besides his occult books and the one spell he'd managed to perfect, there hadn't been much to him, and one furious punch from Dean had laid him out on the floor. He was probably still lying there.

"I wasn't playing hero," Sam said, almost sulkily.

Great. Dean preferred him trying to suck up. "No, playing won't get you killed."

"It wouldn't have killed me," Sam murmured.

And Dean's anger rose again. "Right, because that little makeover wasn't worse than death?"

Sam didn't answer.

Yeah. Neither of them really wanted to remember the pathetic pack they'd tracked down after their face-off with the wannabe mage. Six former people, six unfortunates whose only crime had been to work in the same office with the dweeb and somehow tick him off. The creatures hadn't killed the victims who had vanished; they _were _them. And there was no counterspell to the transformation. They weren't dangerous, but Dean had wanted to smoke them anyway, put them out of their misery. His finger had just lingered on the trigger long enough for the pack of…whatever to slink off. Sam had been quiet the rest of the way back. Until he'd started apologizing.

Suddenly, the only thing Dean felt was tired.

"You wanna stop soon?" he turned the words over in his mouth a few times before offering them. "I think there's a town coming up." Towns meant real food and a slightly higher class of bed like Sam usually appreciated, an olive branch.

The shadows were getting long, hiding Sam's eyes under all that hair, but Dean could see their glimmer, and the pull of his little brother's smile. "Sounds good." Still that murmur of soft-hearted regret Sam was prone to. It was the first apology that didn't raise Dean's hackles.

The fact was, he'd never be okay with seeing Sam running into danger. The last victim of their crazy spellcaster had been awash in the light of the spell when they'd arrived, and Sam had taken one look at the guy and lunged into the room after him. For all Sam's oversized brain, the small fact that he didn't know if he was exposing himself to the same transformation, not to mention whether it was even possible to save the victim, didn't seem to have penetrated. Dean had been helpless to do more than knock out the dweeb with the book and burn all his black arts material while waiting to see if he still had a brother or not.

Yeah, that tended to make him cranky.

But…Sam was okay. And that made it forgivable, too.

The diner was the home-cooking kind, not the grease-pit kind; Dean had become quite the connoisseur over the years. He pulled up in front of it, killed the motor, and looked at Sam. "I'm not mad."

Sam glanced at him in surprise, probably not expecting the directness. But Dean could do direct when it mattered, and he wanted to be very clear on this.

"But if you ever pull a stunt like that again, I'm shipping you back to Stanford in a crate."

Sam's smile spilled out like sunlight. Okay, so maybe it wasn't exactly direct, but he got it. It was no secret Dean couldn't stay mad at him for long.

What he didn't know about was the call Dean had placed to the police before they'd left town. Nor about the victims' belongings, carefully collected from the homes they'd checked, that Dean had secreted—not too well—around the dweeb's house. He was a hunter of evil, and adapted his technique to the job.

And Dean Winchester held a serious grudge against anyone who'd nearly cost Sam his life.

**The End**


End file.
